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Athenian Naval Power in The Fourth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. L. Cawkwell
G. L. Cawkwell
Affiliation:
University College, Oxford
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Extract

The reader of Demosthenes can hardly avoid the impression that there was something sadly awry with the Athenian naval system in the two decades prior to Chaeronea. The war in the north Aegean was essentially a naval war, and Demosthenes frequently enough blamedAthen's failure on her lack of preparation. ‘Why do you think, Athenians,… that all our expeditionary forces are too late for the critical moments?…In the business of the war and the preparation for it everything is in disorder, unreformed, undefined. So it is that some news arrives, we appoint trierarchs, we give them the opportunity legally to get others to act in their stead, we consider provision of money, then it is decided that the metics and those “living out” should go on the ships, then again you yourselves, then to allow substitutes, and during these delays^the cause for which we would have been sailing is lost before we have sailed] For we spend the time for action on preparations, but the critical moments for action do not last as long as our dilatoriness and cautious procedures’ (4. 35 ff.). This was spoken in 351 and it is much the same a decade later (8. 10 f.).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , December 1984 , pp. 334 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1984

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References

1 Cf. Blass, , Att. Bered. iii. 1, p. 527Google Scholar (‘Der Mangel anOrdnung und Zucht im athenischen Seewesen wird uns jedenfalls durch diese Rede sehr grellgezeigt’).

2 Cf. Blass, ibid.

3 For the chronology cf. Beloch, , Gr. Ges. iii. 2, pp. 245–7Google Scholar.

4 Diod. 16. 35. 5 speaks of Chares being offshore at the Battle of the Crocus Field (352 B.C.) with ‘many triremes’.

5 For the dating cf. Historia 22 (1973), 759–61Google Scholar.

6 For the meaning of the phrase καταλόγους ποιεîοθαι τ⋯ν δημτώυ. cf. Dover ad Thuc. 6. 26. 2. It does not imply the registration for service of those previously unregistered, but means simply ‘to draft’. Cf. Lysias 9. 4, the case of a citizen, not long back from a campaign, conscripted again (κατελέΥηυ στρατιώτις), and Lysias 14. 6. For drafting in an emergency cf. Jordan, B., The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period (Vol. 13, University of California Publications: Classical Studies, 1975), p. 226Google Scholar.

7 [Dem.] 50. 4 is our only evidence.

8 References to forcing ships to put in (κατγει) are frequent. This was not necessarily a sign of hostility (cf. I.G. II2 360. 35 ff., [Arist.] Oec. 1346b 30). Cf. de ste Croix, , Origins of the Peloponnesian War, pp. 47 and 314Google Scholar.

9 Cf. Aristotle, Rhet. 1359b 21–23.

10 Periods of widespread corn shortage were common. The best attested was that of 330–326, so profitably exploited by Cleomenes (cf. Dem. 56. 7, 34. 38 f., 42. 20, 31, I.G. 360, Plut. Mot. 851 b); its effects were felt through the whole of the Greek world, as Tod, G.H.I. 196 shows, and it prompted Athens to seek its own secure supply from the Adriatic (G.H.I. 200. 217 ff.). The most famous wasthat in which Joseph exploited the seven lean years (Genesis 41. 53–7). Another (Acts 11. 28) probably produced the bread riots under Claudius (Tac. Ann. 12. 43). In 357/6 there was'a corn shortage throughout the human race’ (Dem. 20.33). When did it begin? The probable explanation of these periods of corn shortage is drought (cf. Genesis 45. 6, ‘with neither ploughing nor harvest’, which I take to refer to Israel, not Egypt, where agriculture depended on inundation which could be ‘low’ but never fail totally), and in 361 there was severe enough drought in Attica for the wells to dry up and crops to fail ([Dem.] 50. 61). Corn-ships were being ‘beached’ in 362 and needing convoy in 361. Perhaps this was one of those periods, and lasted until 357/6. But whether this is true or not, the important point is that the news that ships were being ‘beached’ which reached Athens in later summer 362 was the first sign of general corn shortage. The grain-harvest in the Crimea falls now in early July and in South Russia generally in the first half of that month (cf. M. Y. Nuttonson, Wheat-Climate Relationships etc., American Institute of Crop Ecology 1955 Figures 64 and 106 ff., Tables 53 and 96 ff.). One must allow time for threshing and transport (perhaps a fortnight) and the harvest date may not have been the ame two and a quarter millennia ago, but all in all it seems likely that it would have been the first of the new season's wheat in 362 which would have been liable for compulsory purchase in Byzantium in late Hecatombaion and early Metageitnion 362/1. There isat any rate no reason to think that Athens had been neglecting to safeguard its corn-supply. In normal circumstances convoy was not necessary and at the first news of crisis the city acted.

11 Perhaps the law was part of the evidence read out after the speech (§68).

12 It is to be noted that the phrase does not occur in Xenophon or the orators, nor does it occur elsewhere in Thucydides. But such reliefs must have been commonplace. In the navy lists the only discernible instances of trierarch succeeding trierarch at sea are I.G. II2 1629. 776 and 941 (which repeats 1628. 421).

13 I.C II2 1951 is (unnecessary) confirmation of a sort, for its date is very dubitable. Cf. Jordan, , op. cit., pp. 71 fGoogle Scholar.

14 Cf. Jordan, , op. cit., p. 229 n. 63Google Scholar.

15 The Scholiast appears to have no independent knowledge. If the Themistocles Decree were genuine, it would tell against Jordan's view (cf. 1. 26).

16 Cf. Dem. 2. 28, a general statement occasioned principally by thecase of Chares in 356/5 (Diod. 16. 22. 1, Dem. 4. 24), as the mention of Sigeum and Lampsacus suggests (cf. Schol. Dem.3.31), and De Ste Croix, , Class Striggle, pp. 293 and 607 n. 37Google Scholar.

17 Polycles may have been an exceptionally sticky customer. There is no knowing in what circumstances he had, at some earlier date, not taken over a ship atthe end of a fellow syntrierarch's six months (§68).

18 Cf. §28, where Apollodorus’ friends, confronting Polycles, allude to danger in transporting money.

19 Diodorus (15. 95) provides a date for the battle, 361/0. Alexander's piracy had begun by September 362 ([Dem.] 50. 4).

20 Cf. e.g. I.G. II2 1605 (a trierarch in line 30, a pair of syntrierarchs in line 36). In I.G. II2 1609, of 19 clear cases, 4 are single trierarchs, the rest syntrierarchs. (However, in I.G. II22 1604, where only single trierarchs are named, it would be wrong to assume that none of them were syntrierarchs).

21 Cf. Dem. 47. 22, 29; the plaintiff appears to have been a sole trierarch in 357/6.

22 The same view should perhaps be taken of the practice of commuting service for pay in the Peloponnesian League (Xen. Hell. 5. 2. 21–23).

23 Cf. Davies, J. K., ‘The Date of I.G. II2 1609’, Historia 18 (1969), 311–18Google Scholar. A good instance of an outstanding debt is provided by I.G. II2 1611. 400 ff. and 1622. 249 ff., a gap of 14 years.

24 For the evidence see Brillant, M. in Darember-Saglio, , Dictionnaire des antiquitèés s.v. ‘trierarchia’ pp. 445–9Google Scholar, and H. Strasburger, R.E. VII A 1 Cols. 108–12.

25 Jones, A. H. M., Athenian Democracy, p. 57Google Scholar speaks of ‘the parsimonious orator’ being able at the age of 80 to boast of only three trierarchs, a marvellous instance of lack of public spirit. The remarks are inept. Isocrates, born in 436, may not have been rich enough to qualify for trierarchic service in the Corinthian War, and beyond military age soon after the start of war in 378. So he may never have been called on before the law of Periander and his boast (15. 145) may have been justified. Further, some scepticism about his wealth would not beout of place; cf. Cawkwell, G. L. in Ancient Writers, I (Scribner/NewYork, 1982), p. 315Google Scholar.

26 Philochorus F 49 states that in 349/8 the Athenians ‘completed the manning of eight ships’ (συνεπ⋯ρωσαν for which word cf. Xen. Hell. 6. 2. 12).

27 For the evidence about taxiarchs cf. P. J. Rhodes ad Ath. Pol. 61.3 and Busolt-Swoboda, G.S. 1128, 1185 f., 1193. Their role in the fleet is mysterious (cf. Xen. Hell. 1.6.29, 35), but there is no reason to suppose that theyhad any part in the manning of ships.

28 Isaeus 7. 38 might suggest that trierarchs were guaranteed by thelaw of Periander a two-year interval before being again conscripted, but the orator may mean no more than that whereas in the late Fifth Century service there were large fleets out almost continuously, by the middle of the Fourth Century there was comparatively a great deal less naval activity and so trierarchic service was required on average only everythird year. However it is to be noted that a law prescribed a year's interval between liturgies (Dem. 20. 8).

29 For the number of rowers in a ship cf. Morrison, J. S. and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships p.256Google Scholar.

30 Cf. Plut, . Per. 11. 4Google Scholar.

31 Diod. 16. 37. 3 and 38. 2, Justin 8. 2. 8, Dem. 4. 17 and 19. 319.

32 According to Demosthenes (18. 107), his law of 340 (limited in scope though it was) secured the perfect functioning of the fleet.

33 The period of the Social War might seem to be an exception. In the later stages of the war the allies assembled a fleet of 100 ships with which they ravaged Lemnos, Imbros, and ‘many other of the islands subject to the Athenians’, and began an assault by land and sea on Samos (Diod. 16. 21); the inscription of the ninth prytany of 357/6 providing for a garrison on Andros (Tod, G.H.I. 156) is a reflection of this period. Clearly the fleet of 60 ships under Chares originally assigned to deal with the revolt (Diod. 16. 22. 1) had proved inadequate and a further fleet of 60 ships had to be sent out (ibid.). The two sea-battles of the war were minor affairs. The battle of Embata was abortive, being called off due to bad weather (Diod. 16. 21. 4, Polyaenus 3. 9. 29, Nepos Tim. 3. 3 f.). The battle of Chios was hardly a major engagement. Chares launched a combined assault on Chios by land and sea. The naval operations in which Chabrias died occurred when the Athenians tried to force their way into the harbour of Chios; Chabrias' ship alone succeeded in entering the harbour and was rammed; the crew swam to the other ships and were saved; he stayed on the sinking ship and was killed (Diod. 16. 7. 3 f.; Nepos Chab. 4 – Plut. Phoc. 6 gives a slightly different account). None of this suggests a major battle. If the Chians had had a fleet equal to defeating the Athenians in a full engagement, events would have been different and indeed Chares would have adopted a different strategy.

According to Hornblower, N. S. R., Mausolus pp. 211–14Google Scholar, Mausolus, who was alleged by Xenophon, speaking of the late 360s, to have had a fleet of 100 ships (Ages. 2. 26), played an active part in these naval operations. Diodorus (16. 7. 3) says that the allied forces at Chios at the start of the war came in part from Mausolus, but if his contribution was naval, it is unlikely, in view of the nature of the battle, to have been large; but perhaps all he did was to send some mercenaries to help in the defence of the city. It must be remembered that the war ended when a rumour reached Greece that the Great King was preparing to intervene with 300 ships (Diod. 16. 22. 2), which hardly suggests that Persian forces were already playing a major role. It would seem that Athens feared she might lose control of the sea rather than that she had.

34 Dem. 4. 34 and 22; Aesch. 2.72; Androtion F 24; Justin 8. 3. 13.